When did the modern public museum appear?

The modern public museum emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the opening of institutions such as the British Museum and the Louvre, as collections previously held by elites were reframed as resources for public education.

What does it mean to call the museum an 'exhibitionary complex'?

It is Tony Bennett's term for the way modern museums and exhibitions arranged objects and audiences into ordered, visible displays that both communicated knowledge and disciplined visitors into self-regulating publics.

Museum History and Theory

The historical development of the museum as an institution and the theoretical frameworks used to analyze how museums collect, classify, display, and shape public knowledge.

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Definition

Museum theory is the interdisciplinary study of the museum as a cultural institution, drawing on history, sociology, anthropology, and critical theory to understand how museums produce meaning and exercise authority.

Scope

This area covers the emergence of the public museum from princely cabinets and treasuries, the social and political functions museums have served, and the body of theory that interprets them as instruments of knowledge, governance, and identity. It encompasses the shift from object-centered to visitor- and community-centered models, critical analyses of the museum's power to define culture, and the spatial and architectural logics of display.

Sub-topics

Core questions

How did the modern public museum emerge from earlier forms of collecting?
What social and political functions have museums performed?
How do museums produce and authorize knowledge through classification and display?
Who has the power to define what counts as culture in the museum?

Key theories

The exhibitionary complex: Bennett argued that the nineteenth-century public museum, alongside exhibitions and fairs, formed an 'exhibitionary complex' that organized objects and bodies into ordered displays, making power visible and disciplining publics through self-regulation.
Museums and the shaping of knowledge: Hooper-Greenhill applied Foucauldian analysis to show that what museums display and how they classify it reflects historically specific epistemes, so the museum is an active producer rather than a neutral container of knowledge.

History

Public museums grew out of Renaissance cabinets of curiosity, royal and ecclesiastical treasuries, and Enlightenment collections, with landmark openings such as the British Museum (1759) and the Louvre (1793). The nineteenth century saw the museum recast as an instrument of public education and national identity, and from the late twentieth century critical and 'new' museology reframed it as a contested social and political institution.

Debates

Object-centered versus people-centered museology: Traditional museology centered on the care and study of collections, while the new museology associated with Vergo's volume shifted attention to the social purposes of museums and their relationships with audiences and communities.

Key figures

Tony Bennett
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill
Peter Vergo
Sharon Macdonald

Seminal works

bennett1995
hooperGreenhill1992
vergo1989

Frequently asked questions

When did the modern public museum appear?: The modern public museum emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the opening of institutions such as the British Museum and the Louvre, as collections previously held by elites were reframed as resources for public education.
What does it mean to call the museum an 'exhibitionary complex'?: It is Tony Bennett's term for the way modern museums and exhibitions arranged objects and audiences into ordered, visible displays that both communicated knowledge and disciplined visitors into self-regulating publics.